Some alligators look for love in all the wrong places; gator mating season is heating up

Mating season can be tough on gators & humans

As the weather warms up, male alligators in Tampa Bay start prowling for a female. This is the courtship process before the breeding starts. Dominant males will often displace weaker ones. When those weak ones are banished, they often wind up in our pools, retention ponds and back yards.

As the weather warms up, male alligators in Tampa Bay start prowling for a female. This is the courtship process before the breeding starts. Dominant males will often displace weaker ones. When those weak ones are banished, they often wind up in our pools, retention ponds and back yards.

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TAMPA, Fla. - If you're a male alligator in the bay area, you're feeling pretty good about yourself these days.

And, well, some don't -- and those are the ones humans have to beware.

Alligator love can be tricky.

"Definitely this is the time of year when we see a lot of movement [from male alligators] as they start to look for places to find a female," says Dr. Ari Fustukjian, an associate veterinarian at the Florida Aquarium. "If you go out to any of our parks in the evenings, there will be a lot of courtship behaviors. You'll hear these really loud bellows."

Dominant males will often displace weaker ones, and those smaller weaker banished gators -- the lovelorn! the snubbed! the lonely! -- are the ones that wind up in your retention ponds and your back yards.

"As they start to do a lot of courtship and combat, the bigger animals will drive the smaller animals out to the edges, and we'll start to see them pop up on our golf courses and in our swimming pools," says Dr. Fustukjian. "The biggest alligators are out in the middle of nowhere because they get the best territory."

If you do have an alligator on your property, DO NOT FEED THEM.

"A gator that hasn't been fed by people isn't going to see people as a food source, they're going to be more afraid of you than you are of them," says Dr. Fustukjian. "So just stay away, use common sense....If an alligator thinks that people are a source of food, you'll see a lot of those negative interactions. Pets go missing."